Field emission mechanism from nanocrystalline cubic boron nitride films

An electron-emission theoretical model integrating the change in the grain size of nanocrystalline cubic boron nitride (c-BN) thin films was established. To understand better the essence of field emission, an accurate numerical scheme, the transfer matrix method, that can be used to compute the tunneling coefficients of the actual surface barrier, was also adopted. The present results show that the emission current from nanocrystalline grain films is far larger than that from regular grain films or bulk c-BN. q 2003 Published by Elsevier Ltd. PACS: 02.60.Cb; 73.40.Gk; 61.46. þ w; 79.70. þ q